Parent-child agreement on ratings of anxiety in children

Research on congruence of parents' and children's reports of children's symptomatology has typically yielded low to moderate agreement. This study extended past research by examining the rate of parent-child agreement on reported anxiety for a nonclinical sample of children. 85 children ages 8 to 16 years and attending recreational summer camps completed measures of their own anxiety and parents completed the same scales on their children twice; once according to their perceptions of their own child's anxiety and once for how they predicted their own child would complete the measures. Analysis indicated that (a) parent-child correspondence was low when using either parents' perceptions or predictions of their child's anxiety, (b) mother-father correspondence on their child's anxiety was moderately high, (c) the children's gender and age were not significantly associated with correspondence, and (d) mothers' and fathers' anxiety was negatively associated with parent-child correspondence. The implications of these findings for research and clinical practice are discussed.